Breaking New Video: Inside the Cargill Lock Down

posted by Rainforest Action Network

Last week 10 activists entered Cargill’s private executive mansion, known as the Lake Office, with a special delivery for CEO Greg Page and the other top executives that run Cargill operations worldwide from this secretive chateau in the suburbs of Minneapolis, MN.

See video of the delivery for yourself:

As the largest privately owned corporation in the country and second largest in the world, the top 20 executives who work in this Cargill mansion are intentionally far removed and very protected from the ways in which their company’s operations around the world impact rainforests and the species & peoples depending on them for survival. And this is specifically why we decided to bring the sound of Cargill’s rainforest destruction right to the offices of these top executives – so they can’t continue to hide from the truth.

Do you think Cargill CEO Greg Page, who makes double digit millions of dollars a year (General Mills CEO Ken Powell made $13.4 million in 2008 so we can only guess how much the privately owned agribusiness monster CEO makes), knows that species like orangutans, Sumatran tigers and elephants are on the brink of extinction, and direly need Cargill to adopt a palm oil policy before they are all extinct?

RAN Activists Lock Down At Cargill: Photo By D. Gilbert

To give these corporate executives the benefit of the doubt, we’re guessing probably not. Which is why we locked down inside of their Lake Office – to bring the chainsaws and the sound of orangutan extinction to their CEO’s office, begging that they wake up and adopt a responsible palm oil policy now! We demanded a meeting with CEO Greg Page and did not fall for Mark Murphy’s attempt to get us to unlock to engage in more “constructive dialogue,” which for 2.5 years has proven unsuccessful in getting real protection for tropical forests in South East Asia.

Breaking major media headlines across the country, threatening the company’s reputation and re-branding Cargill as a company that specializes in rainforest destruction, our action made a huge splash. But we need your help to continue pressuring both Cargill and their customers – such as General Mills, who have the power to get Cargill to change – until they adopt a socially and environmentally responsible palm oil policy! Because the clock is ticking for Indonesia’s rainforests…we don’t have much time to wait.

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